


Fade to Black

by einteufelimengelskreis



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Warren & Ororo BFF, Warren is a music nerd, angry lonely angel, but also some humour and fluff because all you need is love, but even more a Nightcrawler nerd, cursing & drinking because it's the rock'n'roll life biatch!, depressive thoughts and bullying, internalized mutantphobia, panic attack description
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:38:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7230331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/einteufelimengelskreis/pseuds/einteufelimengelskreis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warren needs to fight with his inner demons. And his love for the one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song reference: Metallica, "Seek and Destroy".

The riff is fast and angry, the rhythm ruminating and addictive. All of these just like his thoughts, though he uses the music to drown them under.

 _“We’re scanning the scene in the city tonight_  
_We’re looking for you to start up a fight_  
_There’s an evil feeling in our brains_  
_But it’s nothing new, you know it drives us insane”_

Warren sits on his bed, legs crossed, eyes closed, head dropped low, his whole body moving to the music. He’s playing it at maximum volume, as usually. Because usually the scream inside his head is too loud to bear.

He loves it, when the rough sound of a electric guitar seems to pierce through his skin, vibrating as far as to the tips of his wings, shaking off all accumulated agression and grief. It kind of accelerates them but not in a destructive way - like vodka does - but in a purifying one.

 _“Running_  
_On our way_  
_Hiding_  
_You will pay_  
_Dying_  
_One thousand deaths_ ”

He learned to run away to music a long time ago, in another life, when he theoretically still had a home and a family, though back then it was just some songs, hummed under the nose of a little, lonely kid. When he no longer had a home and stopped pretending to have a family (or rather the family stopped pretending to have him…) he found himself the new one in little thrift stores in Berlin with pirate cassette tapes - you could get everything there, from Frank Sinatra to Led Zeppelin and the cool thing about these places was, that no one seemed to be startled by the view of a guy with wings. Well, at least in West Berlin. When he found himself in the GDR - against his will but without a choice - it stopped being so much fun. The collected tapes appeared to be even more useful then - to help pump the adrenaline up before the fight or soothe the aching body after it.

He always could find himself - in the melody, or in the lyrics. They were the perfect, understanding company, the only one he could always rely on. And even now, when he had the memories he would have never suspected before to earn, he could find their reflection in songs.

 _“There is no escape and that’s for sure_  
_This is the end, we won’t take any more_  
_Say goodbye to the world you live in_  
_You’ve always been taking but now you’re giving”_

Warren pulls his head back, feeling shivers down his spine when the lyrics seem to reach and grab the darkest part of his mind, the memory of him losing control, finally unleashing his anger, his frustration, his pain and almost, almost bringing…

_Apocalypse._

“Searching…Seek and destroy!!!”, he shouts together with James Hatfield, spreading his wings widely only to bend and cringe from a sudden wave of pain running through his back.

Oh yeah. If he ever forgets what he almost did, there will always be a quick reminder in a form of a wrecked metal construction on his back, slowly being replaced by his natural wings, but still unable to take him in the air and causing severe cramps.

That what he caused. Pain and ruin. That’s what he’s capable of.

“Warren, for fuck’s sake!”

He didn’t hear the banging at the door but he finally hears them opening with a thud.

“Scott, language!”

“Sorry, professor…”

Warren turnes around surprised and angry, only to see Scott Summers and Hank McCoy at the threshold of his room with Ororo and Kurt peaking from behind their backs.

“What?!”

McCoy takes a deep breath, but realises he would have to scream to be heared in this noise, so instead he comes to the Warren’s cassette deck and turns the music off.

“Exactly this.”

Warren wants to get up but the cramp in his back still stops him so he does everything to remain in the most natural position possible. He would rather die than let them see him being… vulnerable.

“I didn’t know it’s a prison as well…”, he grumbles instead.

‘It’s no prison. But there are rules. Concerning some decent co-existence especially, what rather excludes making everyone deaf on purpose.”

“Fuck your rules,” he mutters quietly to himself under his nose. The undesired silence falls heavily in the room and Warren feels naked in it, without the music to hide in, to lose himself in. To protect him.

“What are you saying there?” McCoy pierces him with his eyes. “You don’t want me to go beast mode on you, Warren, don’t you?”

“Whatever,” he gets up finally, starting to feel being suffocated. He desperately needs air. And space. “I’m leaving the party if you don’t like it.”

He comes to the window, wanting to open it and…

Fuck.

He forgot. He can’t fly away. He did it automatically, despite the pain, because his dumb, arrogant self is apparently stronger. Fucking idiot.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to swallow up the humiliation, before turning around and leaving the room through the door. With the corner of his eye, he catches Ororo winking to him knowingly. He almost smiles to himself, but then his eyes meet Kurt’s. And what Warren sees in them is a pure… worry?

And this startles him so much, he even forgets to tell him to piss off.  
***

He finds his cover in the attic.

As always - the highest and the broadest room he can find under the roof of the place where he’s currently staying. There have been many rooms and many attics, but they all had the most important things - air and space.

And he lacks them. Especially now, when he can’t fly. The rooms and corridors of the Institute are too small for him, too narrow. He cannot move easily without his wings getting caught on various things and knocking them down or getting hurt. He feels indeed like some ungraceful ostrich with a metal harness, trapped and tame, too self-conscious of the body - which is supposed to be his own and yet seems so strange - and of all the unwanted attention. And it’s not that he feels how unfriendly some of the looks are. He knows it.

Like back then, when he was sitting on the sill of his room’s open window, watching the sunset above the garden and wondering how great it would be to simply fly away to the horizon, while some kids below were playing ball. Suddenly something hit a wall hard, just beside his head.

The kid who threw the ball came to get it back. He was looking up, straight at Warren. He didn’t say sorry. He smiled. And it wasn’t a nice smile.

He got up, standing on the sill and spreading his crippled and - because of this - even more frightening wings, ready to jump down. It was the first floor, which normally would be nothing for him but now posed some threat, as even with his extra endurance, he was still recovering. However the adrenaline was pumping in his veins, though he knew the rest of the kids was observing him carefully and that there was too many of them. It didn’t matter.

The thing that saved some of their and for sure his own sorry ass was a sudden downpour coming from the sky, completely out of the blue. A downpour or maybe he should rather say _a Storm._

And yet it was just one episode of many others with someone saying something - not exactly about him, throwing something - not exactly at him, looking in his eyes - not exactly in a hostile way. Exactly to provoke him.

And Warren can’t let himself to be provoked again. Because now he knows too well what happens next.

Mayhem. And ruin. And dust. And loneliness.

But what more has he now?

It isn’t his place, his home, with the walls that seem to be closing down on him and they really do it in his stifling dreams, from which he wakes up slicked with sweat. Yet he has nowhere to go. He can’t. Not with this sick joke of wings on his back. He’s no better than a fancy little bird in a cage.

And if he could?

He smiles to himself bitterly, because he knows the answer is the same. Nowhere to go.

So he stays mostly in his room, blasting the music, his sole redemption, letting go of the anger that has no other way to vent.  
Of course, he can’t say no one talks to him. Ororo comes. Sometimes they talk, sometimes she listens to the music with him, sometimes they fight over the superiority of punk rock above heavy metal and vice versa, sometimes she wants to borrow his leather vest, sometimes she sneaks in a pack of cigarettes or a beer. Sometimes she just sits with him.

Then Professor Xavier keeps talking with him, though Warren remebers to not make it too easy. Especially since he has asked to gain access to the Danger Room and the Professor refused. “You’re not ready yet.” Not ready his ass. That only put the boot in.

And then, there was Nightcrawler.

Warren sighs, leaning his head against the wooden wall and watching the dust hovering in the light. Considering its amount, his black jeans will be grey, when he leaves this place. He’s sitting straight on the floor - unfortunately he has to leave all the rafters to bats for now - tapping the rhythm of some song with his fingers on his knee.

Nightcrawler. Kurt Wagner. This fucking blue freak. His the most serious problem in this damned school.

Who destroyed him. And then saved him. Who is his contradiction in every possible sense.

Dirty angel and pure devil.

Warren, with his golden hair, fucking awesome proportions and majestic wings, from a good and wealthy family. And Kurt, with his blue skin, his tail, sharp teeth and claws, a foundling from a circus.

Warren, with his anger and grief, howling emptiness inside filled up with alcohol and loud music, his battle scars and family that was too perfect for him. And Kurt, with his kind smile and gentleness, his courage, his faith and bunch of good jokes and tricks for everyone, taught by the family who didn’t choose him but _wanted him_ anyway.

Angel who almost destroyed the world and devil who helped the fallen angel rise.

They were like each other’s reflection in a distorting mirror, like souls that swapped the bodies.

And it hasn’t been long - though it doesn’t automatically mean that he understands and accepts this - since Warren realised that both his soul and body crave for Kurt. Like they would like to find their missing jigsaw piece.

And Kurt comes. Kurt talks to him. Kurt seems worried, which drives Warren insane, makes him want to howl, and hide, and run away, and cry, and scream, beacuse he doesn’t know what to do with such a feeling someone has for him. And at the same time he wants to fall to his knees and worship the fuck out of this angelic demon and then…

Suddenly the silence and the stillness of the attic are interrupted by a familiar sound and a cloud of dark-blue smoke.

_“Na ja. Ich habe dich gefunden!”_

How does he do this? That even his voice seems to smile?

He often speaks German to Warren, knowing he will be able to understand him.

“Did you steal some new powers from Jean Grey?”

“Though it could be useful sometimes, I didn’t.” Kurt smiles wildely and comes to him closer. “But I have something for you anyway.”

Warren looks up at him.

“What?” and he adds right away: “What for?”

“To solve some of your problems, _mein Freund. Komm mit mir!”_ he reaches out his hand.

Warren hesitates. Because of many reasons. Finaly he takes Kurt’s hand and let him teleport them right back to his room.

“I wanted you to try it on at once,” Kurt explains and then hands him a pair of headphones.

Warren doesn’t take them. He doesn’t say anything.

Kurt tilts his head.

“You know, now you can listen the music and not piss off anyone. And no one will piss you off too. _Komm schon, schau’s dir zumindest mal an!”_ *

And before Warren does anything, he puts them on his head.

He’s close. Too close and Warren can feel the adrenaline pumping in his veins again. It’s like before the fight, but different. Yes, it’s more dangerous.

“Varren?” he sometimes still pronounces his name with this funny accent and maybe this wakes him from the stupor enough to realize he’s squezzing Kurt’s wrist and…

And he simply can’t let it go. Because Kurt is too close, his face is too close, his eyes, and Warren can see in them the same worried look.

He doesn’t know, maybe that’s somethin in his face too, but Kurt doesn’t move away and he soon finds himself holding him tightly, his face burried between Kurt’s neck and schoulder, _his skin is so warm_ , clinging to him so much, he doesn’t know if it’s Kurt’s or his heart beating like mad.

For a quick moment he gets an impression Nightcrawler wants to teleport himself, but instead he feels his arms embracing him equally tightly.

“Varren… _Engel…”_

And for that one moment he feels whole again.

________________  
* * "Come on, check it out at least!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed a bit the piece in Chapter I about Warren sitting in the window and getting attacked with the ball as I had to rethink thoroughly the current state of him and his wings.
> 
> It’s a tiny part but I need to clarify this to avoid confusion.

“Ororo, have you been in love?”

Storm chokes on the beer she was drinking and bends with a coughing fit.

“Man, you wanna kill me?” she looks at Warren with confusion. “Or are you already drunk?”

They’re sitting in the garden, under one of the trees on periphery, far enough from the Institute’s building to not to be seen or disturbed by anyone. It must be late, because just few lights are visible in the school’s windows and the sky, only dark-blue not so long ago, is pitched-black now. There is no stars, the day was cloudy and chilly and the night is getting really cold and windy. Ororo hates such weather, it always takes her down. She can fight it like whole day, casting out the clouds and air currents, but they keep coming back, making all her effort futile.

Probably that’s why she agreed on a drinking meet-up with Warren, who seems strangely upset and fuddled today. Even for him.

Ororo embraces herself, shivering a little.

“We should go. Are you finished?”

She looks at Warren again, but he’s sitting still with a lowered head, his hair long enough again to cover his face and eyes. He’s playing thoughtlessly with a half-empty bottle of beer, when another three, completely empty, lay abandonned in grass around him. He hardly spoke tonight and Ororo has got a little bored actually, but she could’t get rid of the impression that Warren needed it. Especially judging by the pace of his drinking.

“Because… Because I wonder if there is a possibility that I… That I could love… And it’s funny, you know, like really fuckin’ hillarious,” he mumbles incoherently.

“Oh no,” Ororo groans. “Oh no, no, no… You’re completely shitfaced. I should’ve known it was a bad idea!”

“It was a great idea!”

“Yeah, brilliant. And now what? Don’t even think I’ll be dragging your feathered ass by myself! Move up!“

She helps him to get on his feet though it’s not so easy, because the remnants of his metal wings seem to be suddenly much heavier than usually. Warren staggers a little, then hiccups and then just stands like that, with arms along his body and a pale face, looking quite lost. And unhappy.

“Jesus, only four beers? Seriously? Are you sick or something? Or on drugs?”

“On drugs?” he hesitates. “Oh, that’s a good one.”

He seems to be pondering over it for a while and then repeats: “That’s a good one.”

“Don’t know. You used to hold your drink better…”

“I used to do many things better. Ororo?” he looks at her, suddenly in a much more sober way. “Do you think it’s possible?”

“What’s possible, Warren?”

He opens his mouth but resignes and just shakes his head.

“Come on, man…,” Ororo sighes, taking him by the arm. “Let’s get you to bed. But after a nice, long, damned walk around in this cold air… Oh, you gonna owe me a lot!”

***

He wakes up in the middle of the night, completely sober but a little disorientated.

He knows he is in his bed, but doesn’t remember exactly how he got there, except that with help of Storm.

He still has his clothes on, so he kicks the boots off. He wants to take the shirt off too, but his moves are still a little disjointed and the material gets hooked on some metal part of his wing. Warren, angry, pulls it hard, so he can hear it tearing, and then simply throws it on the floor with somehow ridiculous agression.

Ridiculous. Oh, that’s a good word too.

He suddenly feels tired. But he knows he won’t be able to sleep again.

He falls back on the bed and lays on his stomach. He tries to stretch out his wings carefully, feeling painful cramps coming again, wave by wave, slightly stronger than usually. The cool breeze from an ajar window is causing goose boomps on his skin, but he can’t bring himself to move and close it or at least to take a blanket, so he just stays like this, in the cold and in the darkness, untill it gets too cold and too dark and he finally needs to defend himself.

No, not by turning the lights on, because it’s not the darkness in the room that is threatening.

His cassette deck stands right beside his bed, so all he has to do is to reach for it and then his hand touches the headphones laying on the top of it.

Warren’s heart hits faster, when the afternoon events come back to his mind.

_“Engel, Engel, was ist los?”_

Kurt’s voice, soft and concerned, his arms around Warren, at first only holding him tight, but next starting to caress him slowly, carefully, like he wouldn’t want to scare a shy, rare bird. This large, clawed hands so unbelivably delicate on his shoulders, on his back and then on his wings. Warren gasped then and he gasps now again at the memory of pleasant shiver going down his spine, a feeling so different than the usual pain felt there.

He puts the headphones on and turns on the music. The rhythm of the drums seems to match his pulse when he slowly puts his hand under his stomach and then lower, under his pants and underwear.

There is something desperate, something anguish in his moans and in the way he touches himself.

He squeezes his eyes shut, wanting to forget the blackness around and to recall instead the blue shade of Kurt’s skin, this very first time when he saw it today from so close, being held in his arms, with the head still on his shoulder. The dark-blue skin on his neck, looking so soft, so warm, that he couldn’t resist and touched it with his lips, so fleetingly, that he doubts Kurt felt it, but it almost electrified Warren and if he only could do more, kiss him more, kiss him _everywhere…_

The moves of his hips are getting feverish, together with the drums and guitars speeding up in his ears. He feels that his skin must be hot right now, but it’s only on the outside as Warren still feels cold inside, because he lacks his missing jigsaw piece, because he cannot touch him, feel him, kiss him, lick him, be with him, be inside him, be like him…

Blood pumping in his ears, or maybe that’s the bass. He feels like before a fight again and this one is going to be the most dangerous.

He lifts his hips higher to thrust harder into his hand, the fingers of the second one tightened on the corner of the sheet.

The music becomes a undistiguishable noise in his head or maybe that’s the cacophony of his pulse and even the darkness makes him dizzy, because it seems to vibrate together with the sounds and in all this madness the only concrete, bright, yet overwhelming thought is him, his body, his skin, his warmth, which he wants to feel on himself, as close as possible, trace with fingers every curve and concavity of his neck, arms, back, tighs, tail…

A pillow drowns his scream and he can only feel lucky it was there, because he doesn’t care at all. 

With the last conscious thought, he takes off the headphones, just like he did it before, right after he snuggled out of his arms.

“Thanks, Kurt,” he said the most indifferenty he could. “Gonna tell you for sure, if it works.”

And - shoved away by his sudden coldness and reserve - Kurt left. Leaving him as lonely as he is now, slowly falling asleep.

***

The mirror in the bathroom is getting misted up, when Warren finally decides to leave the bath.

Long, warm showers have always been useful in case of a hangover but he doesn’t have one today. Being completely honest, maybe he simply was drunk more with his thoughts than with the beer… However the warm water feels too nice on his skin, it releases the tension in muscles in his back and the soft touch maybe, just maybe, reminds Warren of something…

Oh no. Not now.

He turns the water off and takes the towel.

After wiping himself, he wipes the mirror as well. He turns back and looks at the reflection from above the shoulder.

Pale skin, with unwiped drops of water here and there, looking really soft in the bright bathroom light. It could be called perfect if not for the scars. There are few, from the cage-fighting times - the one on the arm, rough and irregular, from the teeth of some shark-like mutant. Another one, right above the hip, after a gash from a knife. That time he actually had a hangover and was deinitely too slow. And then another one, not from the fights, but from childhood. The small and oval one, on the shoulder blade, so small, that he rather knows it’s there, than sees it. He was chasing a ball through the long corridor in the house, then tripped over a rug and hit a sharp corner of a table. A plane, casual scar from an ordinary, innocent childhood accident.

And right beneath it - the wings.

A dark, metal skeleton, creeping out of his body, like the manifestation of all the anger and grief he usually manages to keep locked inside, especially now, when all its shiny glory is gone.

The wing blades are massive yet they’re carefully sculptured at the same time. They’re half alive after all. More like an insect’s shell than an armour. However the farer from the blades, the bigger the deformation. The right wing is almost completelly featherless and looks like a monstrous spider arm or a dry branch of a withered tree, the left one is shorter almost by half, torn off in the elbow (the same wing that got hurt in the fight by Kurt, which seems to have its dark symbolism there). Under them, there are two big, fresh scars running on both sides of his spine - marking the place where the secondary wings, created solely by Apocalypse, used to be.

Close to the back, the metal construction is cracked by the force of already growing bones and wings’ blades forming up. For now they’re mostly hidden inside his body but Warren can tell, by the escalating pain, that not for long. He knows this kind of pain too well from his childhood, however this time it’s slightly different and unfortunately worse. The doctors said it’s because the new bone is starting to push slightly against the metal parts.

At first there was a plan to remove the remnants completely. However, it was confirmed soon that the metal is actually half-organic and moreover seems to have its highly developped immune system, working like a trap - the attempt to take the wings out might result in kind of self-destruction, dangerous to Warren. Especially that so little was known about the inhumane power standing beside it…

When he heard about it, he smiled bittelry. Apocalypse had kind of read his mind and his past, providing for the future in which his Angel of Death might have actually realized what he had become so he would have eventually decided to repeat his childhood prank…

The secondary wings could be removed because due to the injuries from the plane crach, they got destroyed completly. 

“They were dead,” they said what caused another smirk form Warren.

Yet, as it later appeared, there was a cure. His own blood. His own bone. His own tissue.

His natural wings growing back seemed to be able to push out the metal, break it form the inside without activiting the trap. “A miracle,” the doctors said.

Suprisingly it was Kurt who didn’t want to openly involve divine powers into this.

“It’s the way it should be,” he simply said.

So all Warren has to do is to wait. Wait through the pain and the cramps, dragging around these grotesque stumps, no longer feeling like his own body. Grounded and trapped between walls and hostile eyes, feeling like his own caricature.

“Your God would say it’s my penance,” he told Kurt once in a rare burst of honesty.

Kurt looked at him with a serious face and shook his head.

“God would want his angel back.”

Warren sighs and leaves the bathroom. Firstly, the kitchen needs him back.

***

He prefers to eat when he knows the most of the students have already had their meal. It’s calmer. It’s safer.

And he doesn’t need to worry he’s going to put a wing in someone’s porridge.

This time the kitchen is also empty. Almost. Because by the largest table, covered with bread crumbs and circles from glasses of orange juice or milk, sits one person.

One blue boy wearing red pants and a visibly too big white T-shirt with an MTV logo, squating on the chair in a position which seems to deny the laws of physics. Especially that he is - apparently out of boredom - slowly rocking on it with his tail serving as some kind of counter-balance.

Before Warren decides if he should withdraw or not, Kurt looks straight at him, a wide smile appearing on his face, perfectly presenting his sharp fangs.

_“Varren! Endlich!”_

_Endlich?_ At last? Does he mean he…

“I was waiting for you!“

Oh.

How the fuck does he do it? One sentence, a few innocent words with the most sincere and kind of silly smile, and all can Warren suddenly do is standing there with even more silly smile and this strange warmth inside him, so hard to understand, so foreign.

“Did you sleep well?”

You don’t want to ask that question, baby.

“Yes, I… I woke up once but I turned up some music and… Thanks for the headphones, it was really an awesome idea.”

“Really?” Kurt’s tail wags enthusiastically and he staggers dangerously with the chair.

“Yeah. It’s a nice to listen to Hammett’s solo in ‘Whiplash’ without additional drums made by someone losing his shit behind the door… Kurt, please, get down from this chair, I’m getting seasick looking at you.”

“Oh. Sure.”

He slides down gracefully and stands up in front of Warren.

He is close again.

The T-shirt is far too big on his slim body, almost slipping from his shoulder, so Warren can see his collarbone.

No, he wouldn’t ever suspect before, he would get turned on by a collarbone.

Before he realizes what the actual fuck he’s doing, he reaches out and touches it delicately, just with the tips of his fingers.

He hears Kurt breathing in rapidly when he caresses it slowly, feeling a sudden lump in his throat. He’s not in the kitchen, he’s in some alternate universe where you can go on fire just like that, by touching some magical blue velvet…

He moves his fingers a little bit up, towards his neck, straight to the place where he can see his pulse beating fast, and though he’s afraid he may explode when he touches it…

“Whoa!”

He turns around rapidly to see Ororo standing in the kitchen’s door.

The only thing he sees after turning back are his fingers touching a mist of the dark-blue smoke.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song reference - Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven"

“Warr…”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Jesus, Warren…”

“Warren’s enough. Still. Don’t talk to me.”

Ororo sighes loudly and looks at him with the mixture of impatience and pity - writhing aimlessly around the kitchen, before he finally sits himself on the stool, running his fingers nervously through his hair. He doesn’t want to talk, fine, she could actually leave him on his own, acting like a bouncing ball of anxiety and studded leather…

No, she couldn’t.

Because Ororo cares for that jerk. And the shit is apparently serious. Especially for someone, who manages to control his negative feelings, yet the positive ones seem to overwhelm him completely, leaving panicked and defenceless.

And after all, she has just persuaded him to stay, instead of running away like some drunk and demon-possesed version of Peter.

“Stop acting like a kid.”

“Me?!” Warren snaps at her. “And who can’t simply shut up and goes all ‘whoa!’ because she saw…” he stops, sighs heavily and rubs his neck.

“What? Yes, Warren, exactly, whad did I see?” she asks him calmly, sitting on another stool, across the table, and leaning towards him. “Somebody could say that nothing at all but I’m not that blind. Especially judging by the way you’re acting now.”

Warren sighs again, quietly. He doesn’t answer. And she doesn’t expect him to do.

She reaches to him and takes him by the hand. It’s very cold.

“I probably freaked him out,” he mutters.

“Well, he looked everything but definitely not freaked out,” Ororo says with a smirk.

“He will be…,” Warren’s voice gets close to a whisper.

“Man, come on! First a spoiled kid, now a drama queen!”

“Shut up, you know?”

“No, you shut up! Quit whining, what are you afraid of? I know that it’s no fun and games being a mutant and moreover being gay, you get the double label, but I thought you’re a tough guy! So find him whenever he bamfed himself to and talk this out, _chicken._ “

Warren looks at her, anger and amuse visibly mixing on his face. Finally he bursts out with laughter.

‘You’re an evil bitch!”

“Totally!” she gives him a wide grin. “Hey! That was why you acted so freaky yesterday?”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, you were asking me about love and you know. Big stuff,” she nods with a serious face, laughing right away at Warren’s obvious embarassment. “It’s apparently true what they say. There is a thin line between love and hate.”

Warren’s face freezes for a moment and he stops playing with beads in Ororo’s wooden bracelet.

“I’ve never hated him.”

And before she manages to throw in something, anything about the cage fight, his wing, about Apocalypse, he adds:

“I’ve hated everything. En Sabah Nur… enhanced it. Like my wings. I actually believe he did something to my head too - during this time I felt like there was a black cloud, really heavy one, in my skull and…,” he lets go of her hand to make a vague gesture around his chest. “And somewhere here. He made me all of cold metal - inside too. Or maybe he didn’t, I don’t know. Maybe this is me, maybe I’ve simply always been like that.”

“Whatever, Warren,” Ororo shrugs. “You’re not anymore.”

The grimace on his face looks like a restrained smile, which he wanted to hold back but couldn’t. Where will he learn to smile sincerely? And when did he forget how to do it? Questions run suddenly through Ororo’s head.

"I’m not, because Kurt got back for me. Hell, without this I wouldn’ be anything, except some fried up pile of scrap and bones!” he snorts bitterly. “Are you sure I… it won’t repulse him?” he adds after a while. "You know, these catholic folks are not exactly cool about such things.“

"Kurt?!” Storm shouts out, obviously amused. “Come on, do you know a more accepting person than this little blueberry? He has his faith but he’s not a bigot. These catholic folks could actually learn from him what love thy neighbour actually means.”

"Oh, my head is splitting", he gasps suddenly. “I’m not used to talking so much. It’s all your fault!”

You’re not used to talking so openly, she thinks but says instead:

“You surprised me! I don’t intend to apologize that I go all ‘whoa!’ when I’m surprised! It could be worse, man. It could be Summers.”

“What about me? And I can assure you there is nothing better than a Summers.”

They both jump up and turn to see Scott, Jean and a few other mutants entering the kitchen. They all look tired and sweaty, yet amused, probably after some game or training.

“Yeah, if someone has your standards, then probably there isn’t,” Ororo smirks at Scott, who opens the fridge, looking for something to drink.

“Well, well, you don’t want me to give you a reproachful look from above my glasses, don’t you?“ the boy returns the smirk.

Storm cackles, then looks at Warren from the corner of her eye. He is all uptight, with arms’ muscles slightly tensed and face turned away from all of the others.

“So what are you plotting here, huh?“, asks one of the boys with seemingly innocent voice. Seemingly. And this is enough to put Storm on alert. Especially that she knows about few incidents between Warren and him. Seriously, perfect timing.

His name is Marco, he’s tall, slim and muscular, and if Ororo recalls corectly, he can control electricity. And is actually a huge asshole. Quite a competition.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Mass destruction and ruling the world,” she says loosely, peeking at Warren all the time, almost instinctively moving her fingers under the table, so she slowly feels the energy tingling in the tips.

“I bet it.”

All the innocence is gone from Marco’s voice in this one short sentence, replaced by the cold scorn, and Storm can feel the sudden tension in the air. She’s not sure if this is caused by Marco’s powers or just by her nerves.

“And you, cat got your tounge, huh? Chicken the Third?”

The tips of Ororo’s fingers are starting to glow.

But Warren stays calm. She can see his jaws and fists clenching a little and his stillnes is obviously unnatural as well as his look, averted from everyone and fixed in the window, but he does nothing. She is almost proud of him.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m dreaming of a shower”, Scott’s voice and moves are overly enthusiastic, when he puts a bottle of juice back to the fridge, shutting loudly its door. “Let’s go, we do not have much time to the Professor’s classes.”

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t leave him just like that. Unguarded.”

“Marco, cut it out right now!” Jean interrupts him roughly.

She is obviously upset and this bothers Storm even more. What did she sense? So is this weird, pulsating feeling in the air not only the result of her own tension?

“No, but seriously, folks. He should be locked. In a cage,” there is something really nasty in Marco’s voice as he continues, looking at Warren with narrowed eyes. “Like some dangerous specimen in the freak show. They would look nice together with that blue devil from a circus.”

Shit…

It’s a blink of an eye, in which Warren spurts from the stool, actually knocking it over with a loud thud, and grabs hold of Marco, pinning him against the fridge with such impact, that he knocks down some boxes put on the top of it, what he seems to not even notice. He presses his forearm to Marco’s neck, the sharp tip of his broken wing dangerously close to his face.

“I’m gonna cut you, you scum, you hear me?”, he growls.

“Go on,” Marco’s face is contorted with disgust. “Will gladly electrocute you trying.”

“Enough!”

It requires the strength of the three of them, and probably even of Jean’s mind, but she, Scott and Ororo finally manage to pull Warren away. Cyclops immediately grabs Marco by his arm.

“Move! Now!”

He leads im out, while Ororo follows him with his eyes, making sure he’s going to see them slowly turning white as little lightnings are starting to dance on her rised hand. She regrets she isn’t like Kurt at this moment and she cannot snarl at him.

Then, she turns back to Warren, who is breathing heavily. She still holds his arm, as well as Jean does from the other side.

“Easy. It’s not worth it, really.”

Warren lowers his head in a way that makes him look defeated.

But suddenly, when Jean puts her hand delicatly on his shoulder, he stiffens.

“Get away from me!” he bursts out, his voice suprisingly broken, on the verge of a panicked cry, then he wrenches himself out of their grip and storms out, hissing to Ororo:

“See? I could only freak him out.”

And only Ororo can guess why he might be so scared of Jean’s touch.

“Find Kurt, please”, she whispers to her however, following this jerk, she cares definitely too much for.  
***  
Ororo catches up on Warren in the midway to his room, in almost the exact moment in which he’s approached by Professor Xavier.

They both know he’s not here by accident. Accidents don’t work with the Professor at least as long as they’re not connected with Magneto and tender kisses on the cheek in the accidental presence of some too talkative students.

“Warren. Come with me, please. Ororo, be this kind and tell the others the classes are going to start a little later. But they will! So no playing truant!” Xavier smiles roguishly.

Ororo hesitates. She looks at Warren but he seems not to care anymore. What is actually the worst.

“Okay, Warren. Shall we? I was thinking about the garden but perhaps you’d prefer more privacy. My office, then? Though I know calling somebody to one’s office sounds rather awful.”

Warren just shrugs his shoulders without a single word and follows Xavier.

The adrenaline wanes in his blood and he suddenly feels tired again. Moreover he had to strain something too much in his back while attacking Marco and the new wave of cramps rises slowly but tenaciously. To be honest, what he wants to do the most now, is to lay on his bed, with a blanket pulled all over his head and the music blasting so loud, that even headphones wouldn’t save the neighbours.

“Please, come.”

The Proffesor’s office is, as usually, suprisingly tidy, especially concernig the amount of books. It even smells of books, of old paper, and Warren likes this smell. It brings the memories of second-hand bookshops in Kreuzberg, the places so out-of-this-world that he felt really safe back there.

“It probably gets boring for all of you to hear, but I know what happened.”

“Obviously,” Warren wants to shrug again, but the muscels in his back are so tighten, that he only lets outside a silent moan and tries to stand still.

“This time is not like that, actually. Scott told me.”

“That’s even more obvious”.

“Warren,” Xavier places himself with his wheelchair beside a small sofa. “Please, sit.”

“I prefer to stand.”

“You’re in pain.”

“Yeah, well… I also thought at that age I should be done with growing pains.”

“And the pills doctors gave you?”

“They don’t do well with vodka.”

The Professor looks him knowingly in the eyes.

“With vodka or with your sense of guilt?”

Warren frowns. This is not something he has admitted even to himself about, so he would rather not have Xavier riding with a mental tank over his hidden motives.

“You don’t feel safe here and I don’t need to be a psychic to see that. You don’t feel comfortable. And it concerns me, because I really care for the safety and comfort of all my studenst. Including you.”

“If Summers told you everything, then you know that my safety and comfort concern the others as well, only in quite the contrary way.”

“Yes, and I’ve been already wondering what to do with this. For now I canceled Marco’s access to the Danger Room and other power developping training. I don’t want to expell him, because it may end up really badly for him and for the others on his way, as there rarely comes anything good out of rejection,” Xavier pauses for a while and Warren ponders if he suggests anything. “But I’m starting to fear it may occur inevitable. There is no place here for such irrational hatred.”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Xavier’s eyes shift to Warren, with a calm though attentive look.

“I don’t know if it’s irrational. Hating someone because he wanted to destroy the world seems pretty rational to me,” he sounds more bitter than he would like to.

“And was it exactly the real you who wanted it?”

Warren frowns again. He actually starts to like his cramps. He can put the blame on them for every slightly emotional reaction.

The idea of Apocalypse messing with his mind was something Charles Xavier suggested during their first talk, but it has been frightening Warren too much. It would take some of his blame away but at the same time it would prove that he was no better than a weak puppet, a clod of clay, a piece of scrap to use and throw to garbage.

Useless.

“Besides, as far as I know Marco picks not only on you, though you’re his favourite for some reasons, but on every mutant that doesn’t look ‘normal’. Do you think this is rational? He picks on Kurt too,” Xavier adds after another small pause.

For fuck’s sake, does everyone want to force him today to do a coming-out?

“There is only one thing worse than such irrational hate. And this is self-hate. You won’t get expelled for this. But this is a burden that may break your back. Especially that there is no need to carry so much.”

Warren takes a deep breath. He starts to feel a weird tingling in his throat and he doesn’t like it at all.

“May I leave?”

“Always,” says Professor Xavier, but when Warren is already closing the door, he adds: “Though I’d really want you to stay.”

***

Ororo shifts nervously from foot to foot outside the lecture room.

She finally hears the chairs shuffling on the floor and Xavier’s voice trying to shout over the already chatting students to give some last instructions.

The door opens soon and students leave but Ororo is looking for a particular redhead.

Jean obviously finds her first.

“Did you look for Kurt?” Storm is surprised by the impatience in her own voice but carries on. “I checked in his room and everywhere around, but I can’t find him.”

“I tried to reach him when you and Warren left but… But he asked me to leave him alone for a while.”

“And you did?!”

“Of course I did, what else was I supposed to do? Paralyze him and drag him by force?”

“That would do” Ororo says and Jean makes eyes at her.

She bites on her lip. Jean is right, of course. But she is worried about Warren. After he left the Professor’s office, he locked himself in his room, and when she knocked, he asked as well to be left alone. Soon the music started.

If this is the strategy of the both of them, together with Kurt, then Storm is afraid it might end up in some spectacular disaster. At least.

“Please, check on him again. I really need to talk with him.”

Jean sighs but closes her eyes and concentrates. However she soon looks back at Storm, clearly confused and intrigued at the same time.

“What?”

“You really need to tell me what’s going on or I refuse any further cooperation.”

“Why, what happened? Did you find Kurt?”

“Yes, I did,” Jean smiles, rising her eyebrows. “In Warren’s room.”

***

Warren takes out from under the bed his metal suitcase where he keeps all his cassettes. He digs in it for a while, deciphering his own handwriting, often half-faded by now.

Finally he finds what he’s looking for. A cassette titled in honour to the Motorhead’s hit song, “Aces of Spades - Vol. 1″. He remembers getting a whole collection of tapes from this dude, Wolfgang, a thrift shop owner, simply to listen to and then tell him, what to copy for him. Completely for free. Later it appeared, that Wolfgang was probably a mutant too, and as gay as a rainbow-maned unicorn, so no surprise he fell for Warren, who was barely 17 back then, rocking a shoulder-length golden locks.

The result of this crush was an impressive collection of fifteen tapes with the songs of the rock’n’roll superstars. The pioneers. The Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, The Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin, The Doors. The hits as well as B-sides from singles. The first volume of the collection was specific, because on the whole A-side was recorded only one song on loop, which was Warren’s revelation and the signpost towards “the real music”.

He checks out if the tape is rewinded, then puts it in into the cassette deck.

No headphones this time.

He opens the window wide and sits on the sill. As he can hear the first sounds of a guitar and a recorder, he can feel the familiar, pleasant shivers going through his body.

_“There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold  
And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.”_

He felt really lucky that his collection survived, but it occured no one even bothered to touch these few things he owned, stashed in his lair on the Berlin’s warehouse attic. In other circumstances he would have felt embarassed, receiving a poor package consisting of some rags, few books and a metal suitcase from a special expedition sent specially to reclaim his things (a one-person expedition, namely Hank McCoy), but he didn’t care. The suitcase was all his world. All what’s good in it.

_“There’s a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure_  
_‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings._  
_In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings,_  
_Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.“_

Warren lowers his head, rocking gently to the music.

There was always something heart-breaking in this song for him, something full of longing, a cry for freedom, for the untamed wilderness. It’s gentle, yet it’s powerful. Like his wings, the way they used to be.

Suddenly he misses them, he misses their touch, the way in which he sometimes used to embrace himself with them, hiding from everything, warm, soft feathers caressing his skin.

And he misses flying. These moments when he decided on a spur to soar into the air, sometimes because of some song, a fragment that was too overwhelming to simply continue to listen to it just like that.

_“There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west,  
And my spirit is crying for leaving.”_

He closes his eyes, leaning his head against a pane of the opened window.

He feels sad. Just sad. And so horribly, awfully, suffocatingly alone.

He knows the song by heart so he immediately recognizes a sound which never was there. A silent puff, which however also sounds familiar, albeit Warren suspects at first, that he’s delusional.

He openes his eyes and realizes a single tear is running down his cheek. He freezes for a moment, quite terrified, then wipes it stealthily and turns around.

In the middle of his room stands a blue boy in a visibly too big T-shirt with the MTV logo.

Warren’s heart skips a beat.

“Kurt…”

 _“Hallo, Engel”_ , he says quietly, smiling shyly. _“Ich möchte… Ich hoffe, ich störe dich nicht?”_

Warren shakes his head and slips down from the sill.

“I’m sorry I disappeared…”

“No. It’s…it’s okay. I don’t blame you, it’s me that…”, he desperately tries to find the right words, to talk it through properly, like Ororo adviced.

But before he goes too far with his nervous babbling, Kurts interrupts him:

“It was nice.”

“…what?”

Nightcrawler smiles again, lowering his eyes for a moment but quickly looking back at Warren. And coming closer.

“What you did. In the kitchen. It was… _wonnig.”_

Warren doesn’t know exactly what this word means, however the way Kurt speaks it, still with this smile, which is so sweet, but at the same time it shows the tips of his fangs, makes his mouth dry.

When exactly did it happen, when did his closeness start to have such an effect on him?

Various memories are running through Warren’s head, Kurt sitting next to him under a tree, after racing with Peter, warm and sweaty, and shooting him a laughing look. Kurt’s tail slithering behind his back to grab a remote control on the sofa, “Verziehung, Varren” said nervously when he visibly shrugged at the touch, oh, you’re fucking welcome. Kurt reaching for something on the shelf in the kitchen, above Warren’s head, his t-shirt going up and revealing a fragment of the flat stomach and a line of the hip bone.

And with every moment like this Warren wanted more.

So here he is, just beside him, admitting he liked Warren’s touch and Warren is petrified, because he feels horribly scared and - yes, let’s say the truth at last- he feels unworthy.

“This song. It’s nice”, says Kurt, leaning against the sill, his voice is silent and soft. Warren always wondered if Kurt would purr, if he could do to him all these things he usually had in mind.

_“Your head is humming and it won’t go, in case you don’t know,_  
_The piper’s calling you to join him,_  
_Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know  
_ _Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.”_

“It’s my favourite. Reminds me of flying…”

Something flickers in Kurt’s red eyes, and Warren is surprised yet grateful that he doesn’t immediately shift his look to the damaged wings but instead keeps it fixed straight on his face.

Kurt tilts his head.

“May I?” he asks and reaches out his hand.

Warren holds his breath when a tip of Kurt’s claw touches his face and slowly, gently moves along the line of the tattoo - sending one million of shivers through the whole body, from the neck to the low of his back. The feeling is overwhelming and maybe it helps Warren to go on.

He reaches with his hand as well and touches the slightly convex line of the scarification on Kurt’s cheek. He feels the other’s boy warm breath on his wrist when he moves his fingers down, next to the corner of his lips, and lower, to his jawline.

“Our gods have marked us both.”

Kurt frowns at these words a little. He probably doesn’t agree.

No, he probably does and this is what bothers him, but he doesn’t have time to ponder, because Warren’s fingers move over his slightly parted lips. A soft sigh leaves them and Kurt touches Warren’s face with his full hand, to caress it and then shift it further on the base of Warren’s neck and higher, tangling in his hair.

They’re like two blind lovers, trying to recognize their features only to realize they’re touching a mirror.

The song’s pace rises to finally reach its climax after the guitar solo and Warren can feel Kurt’s tigh and hip pressing against his own, his hand tightening on Warren’s neck and then the tip of his tongue running fleetingly over Warren’s fingers.

His moan gets stifled by the soft lips pressing suddenly against his own and all he can do is quickly draw the curtain in the window, when the slim, warm body pours into his arms.

And he feels that he’s flying again.

Nightcrawler’s kiss is gentle yet passionate at the same time, with quick, subtle moves of just the tip of his tongue and lips nibbling Warren’s as he snuggles up his chest, his arms embracing Warren tightly, hands moving along his neck and shoulders and yes, even his wings, his hideous wings and all that Warren can do is to whimper silently between kisses feverlishly given back. His hands wander under Kurt’s too big t-shirt and he can feel the other boy shivering at the touch on the naked skin of his back.

Suddenly Kurt pulls away from the kiss and for this one horrible second Warren is scared again to lose his jigsaw piece, but it’s enought to see the shiny eyes, the faint purple on Kurt’s cheeks and sharp fangs reveiled again in an almost devilish smile, to calm him down.

_“Lass uns fliegen, Engel!”_

And before Warren can even open his mouth, the room disappears from before his eyes only to be replaced…

“Holy shit!”

He falters on the tiles only for a few seconds, mostly because of the surprise and confusion, to quickly regain his balance and look around with a gasp turning into a loud burst of laughter.

Kurt teleported them straight onto the school’s roof.

Warren takes a deep breath. He can’t remember when was the last time he felt so much space around him. He opens his arms and wings as wide as possible, enjoying the soft touches of wind all over his body.

“It’s the best I can do. But you can feel closer to the sky. To heaven, like in your song,” he hears Kurt’s voice.

Warren turns back to him and kisses him again. The two red stars are his whole heaven today.


	4. Chapter 4

His skin brings to Warren’s mind a thought of a precious, blue stone, precisely carved with magical symbols. Magical, because this stone is soft and warm when he touches it with his hands, and it’s delicate and trembling when he traces its lines with his lips. His already favourite path leads from the jawline, through the tendon in his neck to the concavity between his collarbones. Warren adores this neck, so slim and alluring, he loves to plant kisses on it, to search with his lips for the pulse, very patiently, though inside he’s burning, overwhelmed by the characteristic scent of his skin, mixed with something sweet, maybe cherries, and by his moans, silent and held back at first, but growing louder and more passionately and…

A carefully crumpled sheet of paper hits the middle of his forehead.

“What the…?!”

Ororo looks at him with her eyebrow rised.

“The side is over. Like five minutes ago,” she points with her chin to the cassette deck. “Don’t move. You better leave the pillow where it is,” she smirks and gets up from the rug on the floor, where she was lying with her notebook, redrawing characters from a Star Wars comic book.

Warren’s eyes shift to the cushion he strategically and far-sightedly placed earlier in front of his hips and he cannot hold back neither the blush, nor the curse.

Ororo cackles, and after changing the side of the tape, she gets back to her place, moving gracefully to the starting music and shooting Warren a devilish smile from above her shoulder.

“Sooo…,” she begins, sitting cross-legged on the rug. “It’s official now, or…?”

Warren only mutters something under his nose.

“What, I’m not asking you about spicey details, though we both know, why Kurt suddenly likes wearing bandanas on his neck, but it’s been almost a month and…”

“Ask Jean, she’s probably well informed.”

Storm rolls her eyes. She had to explain him that significant day, how did she know that Kurt had been in his room. And she had to let him know, because there was absolutely no way she could refrain from reaction. She was actually surprised by herself, she hadn’t involuntary created a rainbow around her head as a form of some celebration.

“Come on, don’t even tell me you’re still mad about this. I was worried! Unfortunately I’m no witch, I can’t tell fortune from the clouds. And Jean’s not a gossiper.”

“But Summers is.”

“She didn’t tell him. Besides, what’s your problem, are you ashamed?”

“Jesus, no!” Warren yells, spurting from the bed. “Not me,” he adds more quietly.

Ororo frowns. She doesn’t like the path Warren’s thoughts are probably wandering now and she can feel it in her bones, almost like she can feel the storm clouds that are going to gather on the still blue sky, when no one else is suspecing it yet.

“What do you mean? I guess not that Kurt could be ashamed?”

“No, he couldn’t,” Warren starts nervously plucking threads from his knee ripped jeans. “But he should.”

“What’s this bullshit again?” she crosses her arms, looking at him sternly.

He sighs impatiently.

“Don’t you get it?! I’m not like a particularly popular person here. And Kurt…”

“Kurt can take care of himself. And he has true friends around. He’s too good to be bothered by this.”

“Exactly! He is. And I… Ah, God damn it!” Warren suddenly tears out a thread from his pants and sucks at his finger, cut by a thin fibre. For a while he doesn’t even look at Ororo. And she doesn’t rush him. She waits.

“Generally speaking…” he finally takes the finger out of his mouth, but doesn’t lift his eyes, studing the cut with unhealthy meticulousness. “Generally speaking, you shouldn’t soil beautiful things with shit. And that’s it. That simple, huh?”

Something stings suddenly in Ororo’s chest. Some weird mixture of anger, sorrow and frustration. She probably should be happy that Warren has got much more open about his feelings with her, but there were moments when she felt… scared. Not of him. For him. And for herself - that she won’t be always able to tell him the right thing. He is still so…fragile. She would never tell him that, but suprisingly it seems to be the most proper word.

“Sure, you can call yourself shit,” she finally says, trying to keep her voice calm. “But apparently Kurt cares for this shit.”

“Wonder why…”, Warren almost spits out these words.

“Don’t wonder. You feel unworthy, then try to show yourself you’re not. I don’t know, buy him a bouquet of fuckin’ roses for a good start.”

Warren is silent for a while, but it’s a different kind of silence. He openes his mouth, then closes it again, as if he hesitated if he should tell something or not.

“What?”

“Actually, I’ve been already thinking… Um, do you know if somebody here has a dual-cassette deck?”

“Yeah, Jubes for sure. Maybe Peter. Why you ask?” Ororo looks at him suspiciously as he seems clearly embarrassed, but suddenly her face brightenes in understanding. “Oh my God, you want to make him a mix tape!”

“Well…”

“Oh geez, I’m gonna piss myself!” Ororo squees almost hysterically. “You’re too cute to be shit!”

“Fuck off!”

“Yeah, you jerk. I love you too.”

***

Damn, it’s hard.

His suitcase opened in the middle of his room, all the tapes lying around in the piles that at the beginning reflected some idea, that later got lost in a mess. As well as the list on a piece of paper with song titles crossed out so many times, it’s barely legible now. One moment he thinks he has too many good songs to fit on one tape, next all of them seem unappropriate.

Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul” - that stays for sure, nevermind the song, but the title speaks for itself, though Kurt luckily is no lady. “Gimme Danger” by The Stooges fits perfectly. He stopped for a moment by “Venus in Furs” by The Velvet Underground, but only shook his head. The song is amazing, but at this stage it’s robably not the best idea to suggest Kurt how he would like to see him in leather, maybe even in one of his own jackets, though… Ugh, better let’s move on.

The Rolling Stones “She’s a rainbow” - perhaps it’s cheesy, but Warren simply couldn’t not to smile at that part about the blue sky. What else? “Stairway to heaven” is obvious and he will ask Jubilee to record it as the first song, but it’s still too less. The Doors? No, they’re too depressive. Motorhead and Black Sabbath are out of question, he won’t find there anything.

What else?

Warren stops rearranging tapes for a while and tries to stretch a little, feeling oncoming pains in the back. Except them getting stronger, they also start to extend to his arms and neck. He waits untill the first wave fades, then gets up, comes to his nightstand and opens the drawer.

A bottle of painkillers is completely untouched. The doctor said to come to him for a new prescription when this one ends, probably next month. Except this was more than four months ago.

Four months of his wings growing back, forming slowly, outgrowing the half-alive metal that was still rooted in his body, bone against bone, tissue versus tissue. Four months of sleepless nights and being forced to lie only on his back or stomach, the whole body often aching and numb in the morning. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to take even one. Like easing his pain would be another proof how weak and useless he is, running away from his very own burden.

He opens the bottle and digs out one pill, swallowing it immediatly, before he decides to change his mind, then he comes back to the mess on the floor.

What else?

The most of his music is so hard and aggressive. He likes it that way, it helps him that way, it resonates with his mind and soul. But it’s so difficult now to find something he would like to give Kurt. And he doesn’t have anything more precious than his music.

He smilles crookedly to himself. Well, that tells a lot, doesn’t it? This was exactly what he couldn’t - and didn’t want to - tell Ororo. That there was still something dark in him, something heavy, something… dirty. Like he wouldn’t be able to rince the debrises Apocalypse left in him. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe Warren was always like that. Hurt wing or not, En Sabah Nur would have found him equally angry and against the whole world. But if Warren had won that fight, no one would have saved him later.

So what could he give to Kurt?

Because if he’s being completed by his blessing, he can only complete him with his curse, can’t he? And Warren doesn’t want it.

But he doesn’t want to let him go - neither from his mind, nor his arms. And this little angel knows very well how to find himself comfortable in each place, being more tempting than a devil himself.

With his cat-like grace, with which he can sneak unexpectedly on his lap, embracing him and putting his face between Warren’s shoulder and neck.

With his purring whisper, “Mmm… You smell of wind,” the warm breath tickling Warren’s skin followed by the lips and teeth nibbling subtely. “An how do you taste?”

With his body so unbelievably slim but at the same time noticeably strong and fit, a mixture fucking Warren’s brain, because he knows what Kurt is capable of, yet he feels him, snuggling into and hugging him so eagerly, his tail wrapping around Warren’s waist or arm.

“Your God doesn’t have problems with this?” he teases sometimes.

“My God has problems with hurting and hating each other. _Aber wir tun uns kein Leid, Engel._ ”

_Nie wieder, nie wieder…_

**

Warren tries his best to do the impossible, which means opening and locking the door behind himself and his wings with around one million of cassettes in his arms.

He fails, of course.

“Arrrgh, _verdammte Scheisse_ , fuckin’ piece of crapshit!” he scowls, when almost a half of this million falls down on the floor, making a horrible noise, accompanied by a thud of the snapping door.

He is still mumbling under his nose, trying to pick everything up and place in his arms in a safer way, when he hears approaching steps and a silent but clear snort.

“Not sure what this German gibberish means, but you’re clearly talking about yourself,” Marco’s voice is as scoffing as always. Warren wonders if he’s even able to talk in a different way.

He rises his eyes only to shoot him a reluctant look and to notice that the other boy isn’t alone. There is this girl, Warren doesn’t know her name, but they call her Id. She has these wicked powers of triggering nightmares or other scary stuff, he isn’t sure, because the girl rarely talks to anyone, sending around this creepy, somehow empty look, though she has lately hooked up with Marco, they are probably even dating. And there’s this kid, Sam or Tim, the very little shit, who threw the ball at him the other day. Warren wonders if he has any special powers except his doucheface.

Cute trio.

He decides to ignore them, like he has been doing since the incident in the kitchen, albeit he has to admit that Marco has been giving him lately suprisingly little occasions to train his patience. Maybe Warren simply didn’t pay much attention, having completely different things on his mind, but now he realizes it’s probably the first time since the fight, when he speaks to him directly.

No, he didn’t miss it.

He gets up, not wanting to kneel in front of them and goes away, though heaven and hell both know how much he would like to smear this smile away from Marco’s face with his left hook. Or left talon, if he still had any.

That’s probably his subconsciouss, but he feels nasty shivers while passing by Id.


	5. Chapter 5

“Okay, so come back by the end of the day, I should be done with it by then.”

“But are you sure?” Warren asks nervously, studying for the millionth time the freshly rewritten list, with every second being less and less certain about his choice. Especially since he entered Jubilee’s room and the spectacle of colours almost hit him in the face - his list seems now to him even gloomier than before.

Jubilee looks at him uncertainly, playing with her huge, yellow, glittery popsicle-earring.

“Quite so. Professor Xavier is away in Canada, on someone’s trail, they say, so we don’t have the final classes today, but I’ve already promised Jean to watch a movie together and I’d better check once again my essay for English Literature, but it’s just the matter of re-reading, at least I hope so, because re-writing is a big no-no, so yeah,” she says all in a one breath, making Warren to finally look away from the list and stare at her.

“By the way,” she adds, not discouraged at all, “haven’t you thought about joining some classes?”

If it was possible, Warren would stare more. Especially that the popsicle-earring is starting to mesmerize him.

“Not really,” he mutters, blinking quickly.

“But you know you can? It’s open for older people… Not that I mean you’re old… But for those who… Not that I say you have any shortcomings, but… Well, it can be fun. Ororo comes sometimes for art classes. And Kurt. Kurt even volunteered to teach kids some German, he makes this cute little tricks to make them learn easier, like pulling out paper animals from his sleeve, you know?”

Yes, Warren knows. He even got from Kurt a paper swan, which sits now on his deck, right beside the headphones. And once he even stopped by the room where Kurt was having his little lesson, surrounded by about five children. They were reciting some silly poem together or rather a countig-rhyme, because, while they clapped their hands, he was pointing at them one by one, laughing and ignoring the fact that one boy decided to chase his tail instead of repeating the words. His was smiling widely, showing his fangs and his red eyes were shining, but Warren has never seen anyone looking more friendly and adorable.

More beautiful…

 _“Goldvogel, flieg aus,_  
_Flieg auf die Stangen,_  
_Käsebrode langen;_  
_Mir eins, dir eins,_  
_Alle gute G'sellen eins.”_ *

Warren was only peaking carefully from behind the door, but something, maybe a shadow cast by his crooked stump, drew attention of the kid, who noticed him, stopped trying to catch Kurt’s tail and immedaitely hid behind his back, visibly scared.

The warm, tingling feeling in Warren’s chest disappeared as if touched by a freezing spectre. He withdrew quickly, before Kurt could spot him.

And to be honest, he has never felt more shitty and out-of-place before. That’s why he might be bored sometimes, but the School luckily has a well-equiped library. Books don’t have eyes.

He folds the list and puts it on the top of the cassette pile.

“Whatever,” he cuts short. “Remember - don’t mess up the order! And don’t let the tape get pulled-out!”

“Yes, Warren, I really know how to use it,” Jubilee makes eyes on him, her voice clearly colder and Warren suddenly feels stupid. She may talk too much, but she’s nice to him. She’s normal with him. Not to mention discrete enough to not to ask who the tape is for. And that’s something.

“Yeah, sure,” he mutters. “So, see you. In the evening. Thank you.”

He probably should give her something in return, he thinks when leaving her room, at the back of his head being somehow surprised he even managed to get this idea. But what it should be, exceeds his level of empathy. Hopefully Ororo will be better at this. All he can think of is yellow and glittery.

***

_“Überraschung!”_

Warren stops literally at the last second to avoid bumping his head together with Kurt’s, as his smiling face appears in front of him. Upside-down.

“Holy fuck!” he makes a step back, totters, hits some chair, but before he falls down, the strong blue hands are catching his arms.

“Don’t do this anymmm…” and before he continues, the full blue lips are shuting his mouth.

The feeling is - like always - relaxing and thrilling at the same time, anyway it makes all the remarks vanish from Warren’s head, while the sweet, cherry-like scent surrounds him and the soft hair tickles his jaw and nose.

“What?” purrs Kurt when they finally part. “What I shouldn’t do anymore, _Engel_?”

He plants another soft kiss on Warren’s cheek, smiling innocently, this little devil, still hanging upside-down from a ceiling beam and rocking slowly on his tail.

“I was just going to get you,” Warren says instead of answering. “How did you know?”

“I always know where to find you, haven’t you notice? Hold me!” he orders unexpectedly, resting hands on Warren’s shoulders, so he barely manages to stand up steady and grab them in time, while Kurt unwraps his tail and bounces back on his feet.

Warren can hardly feel the pressure on his shoulders and he suspects that Kurt belays himself in some another way, thanks to his extraordinary dexterity, wanting to avoid weighing down Warren’s back.

“And you get better and better in this. In the circus, you could be my lovely assistant! The problem is, you would steal all the looks.”

Warren snorts, shaking his head. He is not sure what surprises him more - how flirtatious Kurt can be or how easily he trusts that Warren wouldn’t drop him anyway.

“Yeah, they would all wonder what this angel has to do with me.”

It’s the slight frown on Kurt’s face that makes him realize that something he wanted to sound flirtatious as well, has turned out quite bitter.

A sharp claw gently touches his lips.

“Shhhh! _Lass uns fliegen!_ ”

Their own, private magic spell moving them to their own, private sky.

***

The setting sun seems to put the red tiles on the roof on fire.

Warren opens his eyes, squints them at the dazzling, orange beams and closes them again, giving in to the blissful feeling of Kurt’s hands stroking his back. These were the real painkillers. Slow, smooth moves releasing the tension in muscles, careful and firm at the same time. Warren doesn’t remeber if anyone has ever touched him that way. Yes, he was caressed, and desired, and being satisfied but it was all dull, and empty, and all he has ever felt was either being used, or using, or nothing at all.

“You can purr too!” Kurt huffs a silent laugh at his ear.

“I learn from the best…” mutters Warren, lowering his head and letting Kurt run with the tips of his claws from the base of his neck, between his wings to the base of his spine, just above the belt in his jeans. The chilly evening air gives him goosebumps, as well as the touch, but it is all too pleasurable to make him put the shirt back on.

He can feel Kurt’s hands stopping by the scars left from his secondary wings. The dead wings, how he calls them in his thoughts. Kurt outlines the scarred skin - probably with his knuckles, because Warren can’t feel the usual light scratch of the claws. He realizes that Kurt tries to be even gentler there and this thought grasps him suddenly by the throat.

And then the hands move up, straight onto his wings. They barely touch his blades, because Kurt knows it’s the most painful place and then they shift to the metal, this disgusting, feeling metal, which still doesn’t want to let Warren go, like some parasite or cancer cells, yet Kurt touches it in a loving, tender way and Warren can’t hold any longer this deceitful sob, he quickly tries to mask with a sigh.

_“Was ist los?”_

“Nichts,” he moves away a little, turning to Kurt and trying to smile, hoping the growing darkness will hide the details of his face. “You know… I have something for you.”

The two red stars twinkle at him joyfully.

“What is that?”

 _“Eine Überraschung,”_ he winks at Kurt, reaching for his shirt. “And what you’d say to wait for me a little till I get back with it and then we can proceed? In you room, huh?”

Kurt nods enthusiastically, getting up to teleport them back Inside.

And Warren only hopes that Jubilee didn’t make any errors in her essay.

***

When Jubilee opens the door, his tape is waiting for him, ready, and tied with a red ribbon.

“I presume it’s a gift, so I thought it would be nice this way… Not that I say you wouldn’t figure it by yourself…”

“No,” he interrupts her. “I wouldn’t figure. No way. Thank you, Jubes. You are fuckin’ awesome.”

The girl rises her eyebrows but grinns widely.

“I’m gonna take all the tapes now too. I don’t want your room to get too heavy metal. Or them too glittery. Don’t know what would be worse.”

***

He concentrates on not dropping all the cassettess again, so at first he doesn’t notice that the door to his room is open. Only slightly ajar actually, but Warren remembers latching it quite well.

His first thought is that Kurt decided to make him another surprise, but Kurt wouldn’t bother with opening the door, especially that he doesn’t have the key, as he doesn’t need one.

After he rejects this option, a dark, unnerving feeling creeps into his mind, putting his whole body in alert, just like before a fight. A familiar rush of blood burbles in his ears. He hasn’t felt this way for a long time. Maybe too long…

He puts all the tapes carefully on the floor, trying not to make any noise. Then he reaches for the handle and opens the door in a one, quick move.

He exhales loudly, seeing the room is empty.

He inhales back and knows immediately that something is wrong.

The smell of burned electricity.

His eyes shift rapidly through the whole room, ready to catch a glimpse of a possible enemy, to anticipate his move and hit before they know what got them. To latch on them and not to let go as long as it’s needed.

A moment after, he sees what happened. It’s almost unnoticable but not to Warren’s senses. Firstly, a burning stench coming out exacly from beside his bed, where his cassette-deck stands. Then, the slightly charred casing. Then, the melted buttons.

He doesn’t know about the state of the headphones, but he can’t see the paper swan.

The beating of his pulse is almost deafening and he can feel the sour, metallic taste of adrenaline in his mouth, when a burst of pure, savage fury hits him together with understanding. And with the sound of closing door. And this well too familiar, scoffing voice.

“Surprise!”

He turns around and throws himself at Marco.

______

* “Gold-bird, get thee gone,  
Fly to thy perch,  
Bring cheesecakes,  
One for me, one for thee,  
And one for all good people.“


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks!
> 
> Some violence, some blood and some serious panic attack. Including my own, because it’s the first fanficiton I’ve finished since 2011, I guess...
> 
> Song reference - Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven" again.

Contact is an ignitor.

The whole accumulated rage releases in the moment his body clashes with another body, his fingers clench on it, his skin rubs against another skin, his fist hits the meat and bone.

Everything that builded up in him before the fight, unleashes in the very second he touches his enemy. A spark-out that causes fire wreaking damage to the ground.

The angrier he is, the stronger he is. The more violent. The more unstoppable.

And now he’s furious.

His left hook reaches Marco’s jaw and, almost immediately after, his knee hits him in the stomach making the other boy bow in half.

The advantage is instantaneous. He’s a fighter. He’s a survivor.

And this stupid fuck hasn’t expected what he brought upon himself.

Warren doesn’t hear him groaning or grunting, he doesn’t hear the dull sound of the blows, he can only hear his own bloodrush and the internal war drums of his pulse, when he uses Marco’s confusion to push him to the wall, pin him with his whole body, his forearm right under the antagonist’s chin and his other hand on Marco’s arm, making it impossible for him to push Warren away.

“This time we’re finishing what we’ve started,” Warren pants out, looking him straight in the eyes.

Marco’s eyebrow is cut, as well as his lip, blood already smeared over his face. He looks back at Warren, at first shifting his eyes over the wings, now spread widely to the both sides. They may be mutilated, but they are still horrifying, or maybe one should say - even more horrifying because of this. They make him look like the real Angel of Hell, the one that fell down and came back from the fire and brimstone. And in that one brief second Warren can see, that Marco is scared.

But then he looks him in the face, and the fear is replaced by - or rather submerged with disgust, turning next into an ugly smile, showing his blood-stained teeth.

“Yes,” he chokes out. “And I hope you remember, what I promised you.”

Warren doesn’t feel it, when Marco touches the bottom of the metallic feathers just with the tips of his fingers.

The pain comes like a thunderbolt. It strucks him out of the sudden and with such a force, that Warren almost sees black for a moment. The enormous cramp makes his right wing and right arm tight up unnaturaly, which lasts only a fraction of a second but is enough to bring Warren to his knees. And he remembers this kind of pain as well as he remembers the pattern of the wire netting around the fighting ring and the stun batons in his keepers’ hands.

He looks up at Marco, who wipes out the blood from his mouth with one hand, holding the other one rised. On the tips of its fingers are dancing tiny electrical discharges, similar to the lightnings usually created by Ororo.

“You know, I could kill you with this. I could break your bones. Rip off your muscles. Burn you. All of which a freak like you definitely deserves.”

Warren slowly tries to straighten up his limbs, noticing with the corner of his eye, that they’re not alone in the room. There is Id, though he has no idea when she arrived. And then he can see the weirdest flat shape squeezing through the slit between the door and the frame to slowly assume the form of this little Tim-or-Sam-Doucheface. So now Warren knows what his powers are…

The little shit comes to Marco and hands him some key.

“The problem is, you know…” Marco continues, carefully following Warren’s moves, when he slowly gets back to his feet, shooting wary looks around. He feels like a hounded animal and he doesn’t like it at all. Besides, the wing still feels weird, as if it would be partially numb.

“The problem is that I don’t feel like wasting my powers on killing someone like you. However - and you are the one who should be worried by this - because I’ve been forbidden from training, I don’t completely control them,” Marco’s voice is full of artificial remorse. “And I guess you can blame only yourself for that. But, oh, I promise to be careful!”

The little shit giggles. Id only shifts her empty look from Marco to Warren and back.

“What the fuck do you want?” Warren growls at him, trying to keep an eye at everyone around as well as stretch out his wing, which still doesn’t feel right.

The whole situation doesn’t feel right at all.

Yes, he used to fight with more enemies than one. That is not a problem. Besides, the Marco’s companions don’t look like skilled warriors…

The problem is something else. Together with the fight, the voltage pain, the feeling of being surrounded, he can feel something waking up in him, something he has been fighting against for the many past months, something he doesn’t want inside him anymore. He doesn’t want it for Kurt… Something dark, something angry, something dirty.

Marco keeps playing with the electricity with one hand, emiting a sound of silent crackling, while with the other he is shifting the key between the fingers.

“What do I want?” he drawls the words theatrically. “Only to teach a little lesson to a freak that doesn’t know its place. And as Xavier is away, so no internal screaming could basically help you, and with the help of Jim-boy here we locked that blue gorilla of deputy in his lab, just in case, which should stop him for a while… Well, there is a chance you may actually understand something from it.”

Warren clenches his jaws. That is no more a silly fight with an annoying bully. That is some serious shit. And well, if they want him to be serious, he can show them how gravely serious he can be, he can show them very well, and as they’ve already managed to piss him off so much, he can let the fury lead him, he can…

He can’t.

_Kurt…_

He can’t, he knows what happens next.

Before, during the cage-fight times, he used to pump his anger up with the music. It was safer but less efficient.

At least not as efficient as when they were trying to enrage him. His keepers. But they were doing it only till this one moment when they crossed the border. Warren remembers their nasty laugh dying out, when one of them suddenly started to wheeze…

Blood on the floor, blood on the feathers, blood in front of his eyes. Night after night.

And the vast, staring darkness when a fight was over and he was finally alone, far away from the roaring crowd, the darkness blacker and deeper with every night, when every aching and overtaxed muscle was recalling every blow he had given and recieved. The blackness baring its teeth at him, in the nights when he felt simply cold and lonely.

So he could do only one thing. Swallow up the blackness and become it himself.

But he doesn’t want it anymore. Not when he’s finally found a stairway out of it.

“Because you all should be taught a lesson, you weirdos.” Marco makes a step towards him. “To stay in shadow where your place is. Because it’s all your fault, mutants are still looked at from above, treated like crap. You’re walking around, flautning your wings, and tails, and colours, and because of that we cannot live like the normal people we are!”

Warren frowns. Somebody has real issues here.

“Dude, I knew you’re full of shit, but this is excessive. You’re no less a freak than everyone around,” he snorts.

Marco’s face gets deformed by an angry grimace.

“Shut up!’ he snaps, the electric arcs above his fingers getting brighter and louder. “Don’t even… Don’t even try to compare me to you! Or to that blue pet-lizard of yours…”

Warren’s heart stops for a moment.

And then it restarts two times faster when he can see Marco reaching to his pocket and taking out a small, crumpled paper swan.

“He’s your boyfriend, right? Fuck, you are simply disgusting. Maybe we should teach him a little lesson too?”

And then everything around drowns in the black fury.

Marco’s yelling is the first thing that reaches Warren’s conscioussness, making him realize he’s straddling the laying boy, striking blows on his face and chest.

”Id!!!” Marco screams again, but his voice seems to come to Warren from far away. From another world. Outiside the black.

From the same place the cold, small hands reach out to touch his head and he falls into black again, but into another kind - cold, empty and suffocating.

He wakes up in a plane.

***

The feeling is somehow similar to anger - equally overwhelming, making his heartrace faster and faster. But as anger is stimulating, this feeling disarms him entirely.

Warren can feel his whole body trembling in a way he’s not able to hold back, while his mouth gets dry and something starts to tighten around his chest so strongly, that he has difficulties to have a breath of air.

He stumbles around, dragging behind him the right wing, now completely paralyzed, looking at the cockpit, the pilot’s seats, the sky visible through the pane.

“Nnnno. No. No. No,” he repeats, breathing faster and more shallowly which each gasp, as the flashbacks start to attack his head.

The heated air of Egypt, his metallic wings in their full, ominously shining glory, the voice of En Sabah Nur drilling through the heavy, murky cloud in his head and chest.

“No. No…”

He’s fighting with Kurt, Kurt’s claws reaching to his eyes as he’s snarling at Warren with hate.

“NO!”

Is this a pyramid visible on the horizon?

He needs to get out. Right now. One of his wing is completely unfit while the other is simply a stump, but it doesn’t matter he needs to get out, get out…

He reaches for the door and immediately throws himself back as it’s starting to buzz with electricity, visible discharges running through its surface.

Shivers and lack of air.

He seems to hear a scoffed laugh somewhere far, far away, but he doesn’t have time to ponder, because the plane abruptly changes its course.

It’s falling.

All that Warren is able to do is to squeeze his eyes, latch onto the closest seat, desperately trying to breathe, while he can almost feel the heat and smell of melting metal, hear the noise of the construction crashing, burying him under and no one will save him, because he doesn’t deserve it, because the blackness inside him is finally going to devour him…

Instead, he feels something kind of letting go of his head, the vision starts to spin, making him nauseous but it doesn’t feel like falling anymore. The sounds around him are getting less muffled and he recognizes…

Bamf!

He tries to focus his sight and he realizes he’s back in his room.

Everything is spinning.

Someone groans. Someone curses. Someone snarls.

And then he can see Kurt’s face, with bared teeth and red eyes glaring with rage, but turned towards somebody else, somebody he keeps his tail wrapped around.

Everything is fucking spinning.

He falls to black again.

***

_“Engel, Engel, bitte…”_

A voice soft like an early morning breeze, such that strokes his feathers and hair in an almost intimate way, when he takes the first flight of the day, his favourite one.

_“Engel… Liebling…”_

Warren starts to realize that it’s not only the voice, that somebody is really touching him, his head, his face, arms and chest, delicately and tenderly but with clearly sensed concern.

He wants to move, but his head hurts more than after mixing vodka with beer.

“Fucking hell…” he moans involuntary.

He recognizes Ororo’s familiar cackle.

“He will be fine!”

He manages to open his eyes and everything is of course spinning. But this kaleidoscope is mostly blue, with two red dots.

“Ugh, hi Kurt…”

He finally regains his senses enought to realize he’s still lying on the floor in his own room, but now he’s being held in Kurt’s arms with the whole army of people standing around, including Jean, Jubilee, Ororo… And Hank McCoy. The blue and furry Hank McCoy. The closed lab door apparently pissed him off more than someone had suspected.

He doesn’t see Marco and his pals.

“What’s this show about?” he mutters, trying to get up, but neither his hurting head, nor the anxiety, waken up by memories slowly coming back, let him. Nor Kurt’s arms, holding im tight and still.

“Varren…”

Something in Kurt’s voice tells him to look at him again, but before he concentrates his still weary eyes, the other boy leans down and kisses him. In the most desperate, sensual, terrified and to the Moon and back way.

 _“Engel…Ich… Ich hatte so viel Angst… Ich… Diese verdammte Arschlöcher…,”_ a German feverish mixture of confessions and curses leaves Kurt’s mouth.

“Wow, babe, easy!” Warren huffs a laugh though even such an expression hurts him and though he slowly grows aware of the whole situation and the reason of Kurt’s agitated behaviour. Which makes his heart squeeze painfully. He even doesn’t care that Kurt has just outed them in front of almost everybody.

“You saved my ass,” he chockes out. “Again.”

Kurt looks at him with teary eyes.

“You know I can always find you,” he smiles sadly.

Warren bites his lip. So it is really possible to feel even more awful.

“Again…,” he repeats, a suffocating lump growing in his throat. So he let it win again. He let the blackness win again and force Kurt to drag him out of it once more. “You should really find someone more worth it. Like really.”

“And who can be more worthy?” Kurt grins widely. “It’s an honour to guard your own guarding angel.”

“I’m a shit of an angel…”

Kurt takes his face gently in both hands and looks at him with these serious eyes.

“Jacob fought an angel,” he whispers, so only Warren can hear him. “You’re both of them in one person. And I know how hard that battle is. And I know you do it for me. I can only be grateful and hope that one day you start doing it for yourself too. And now look…”

Kurt points at something behind Warrens shoulder, gently lifting him up a little.

Warren turns his head and sees a wing.

Not this metal monstrosity, but a real, flesh, bone and feathers wing. Still quite small and fragile, but real. His own.

“How the…?” the voice fails him.

“It fell off. The metal. It died and fell off.”

Apparently Marco did more good than he intended to.

“Okay, lovebirds,” Hank’s voice is somewhere between embarassment, amuse and affection. “We should take this half-ass Gabriel to the hospital wing now”.

“Professor, language!”

“Don’t make me go all beast mode on you, Summers!”

***

Warren takes a deep breath, when a soft wind rises, bringing on the mixture of all the nearby scents, the nice ones and not so nice, like freshly mowed grass and car fumes from the passing truck, all like the best perfume for him, because all are in the air, roaming wide and free.

Shortly, he will be too.

_“And it’s whispered that soon if we all call the tune_   
_Then the piper will lead us to reason._   
_And a new day will dawn for those who stand long_   
_And the forests will echo with laughter.”_

He can feel that Kurt, who keeps his head on Warren’s shoulder, moves a little and takes a deep breath too, but with his nose too close to Warren’s neck.

Warren giggles and stretches out his wing, now almost fully grown back, to embrace the other boy, while they’re sitting on their roof, each of them with one headphone in the ear and a walkman borrowed from Scott.

The other wing outgrew the metal as well, shattering it with its force, so now only few pieces are left but they should fall off soon. Warren inisisted on using the electricity to kill it off, but the doctors and Hank decided unanimously it was too dangerous. He needed to stay patient. He scowled, and cursed, and threw some things but finally he agreed. And with a little, lovely, delightful help of tender hands stroking the growing feathers, he stays patient.

“This was a great gift, Varren…”

“You like it?”

“Very much. But this song is my favourite.”

He smiles and nods, without a word.

_“If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now,_   
_It’s just a spring clean for the May queen._   
_Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run_   
_There’s still time to change the road you’re on.”_

”You will be flying soon again,” Kurt says quietly with his lips close to Warren’s ear. “No need for substitutes. It will be still your favourite too?”

Warren smirks to himself at rougish notes ringing in Kurt’s voice. Little devil.

”Yeah,” he faces him, tracing a quick, subtle lick over these tempting lips. “And before I can fly, just kiss me.”


End file.
